Ps. 66.1 (Aaron and a nation of priests)

May God / be gracious to us / and bless us;
May he / make his face / to shine among us. 

Although this psalm is a petition it is not, importantly, a petition for deliverance. There is no sense of a threat to the community’s, or psalmist’s, life. Rather, it is a petition for blessing. This is important, it would seem, as even though the entire world is envisioned in this psalm, there does not lurk within it what seems so prevalent in many other psalms: that the nations are manifestations of the waters of chaos, attempting to engulf Israel. It is in this context of a seeming worldwide peace that these opening lines are uttered. The psalmist is here quoting (or, enacting) the blessing given by Moses to Aaron, the high priest, in order to bless the people. The Aaronic blessing, then, is no trivial matter. Just as the patriarchs in Genesis pass down their blessing to their sons in an irrevocable manner, how much more does this blessing of God effect his life-giving power in and through Aaron, the high priest. In other words, it seems as if, in the perpetuating of a blessing, the individual performing the blessing is, in some way, being transferred to the blessed. The father, for example, is in some manner giving his own virility, power and life to the one blessed. When this is now applied to God, Aaron, as high priest, mediates the very power/presence of God onto (or, into) the people; they become empowered by his own blessing-power-life. The ‘face of God’ is now illuminated, shining and turned toward his people. Yet, the psalmist here modified the Aaron blessing in one small but important way—Aaron, the high priest, is no longer the one who mediates the blessing; the people mediate the blessing onto themselves, thereby making themselves the ‘high priest’. This shift is profoundly important, in light of what we said above and as to what will follow in the psalm—the people have become the high priest and it is through them that the blessing/presence of God will now be distributed not only to the Israel but to the world. In this we see a shadow of God’s original design for Israel: to be a nation of priests (the eldest brother to his nation-brothers).